It’s hot here in the Chicago area (and extremely humid) and I’ve been unable to get out into the garage to do much as a result. A friend just sent me a message that he has one of these and offered it to me free of charge:

My question is around safety of this unit in the shop. Will I be asking for a catastrophe with dust and this unit? I have an electric heater that works well but my small window AC can’t keep up with the size of my garage and this heat so this would be ideal if safe.

8 replies so far

Probably safer than an electric heater if your electric has the glowing coils. An oil filled electric is pretty safe. The heat pump has no coils. It basically run the air conditioner in reverse. You would have to blow off the filters frequently if doing dusty work, but other than that I’d definitely take it if it was free. :)

OH! And generally speaking, none of the indoor units seem to be as efficient as a window or through-the-wall unit. Just sayin’.

I seen friends use those style A/C units for their shops with pretty good results, although I’m not sure specifically what brand they were.

If you can swing it, these are really nice. Had friends that used them to cool box trailers we used for pit spaces and it worked well in very humid conditions. Theirs actually were made by Mitsubishi, but same concept. I know the Mitsubishi are about 3 times as much tho.

I work on a commercial fishing vessel and use one of these in the stateroom I sleep in. It is extremely humid in there and this thing keeps up great. Don’t use it for heat but I’m sure it does fine. I vent it into the engine room below decks

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Sounds like it should work out just fine and like joe said, I can always build a cabinet around it with filters and proper venting. Plus it’s free so if it ends up not working there is no loss for me. I’m going to pick it up in two weeks when his daughters party is on (he’s a bit of a hike from me).

it’s worth the try if it is free although I have one that I use in my shop in the summer and I don’t really find it that effective. Typically these work well for small rooms; depending on what size your shop is you may not find it that effective.